In Production: Read me! and Passion for the Hermitage

More than 10,000 people to date on Read Me!. Since its launch in January 2007, Read Me! has attracted more than 10,000 individuals and over 900 members. Each week, the site presents a new title from the reading list as Book of the Week, and the short film messages aren't only interesting for young people, either. Language teachers can also link their lesson plans up with the Book of the Week and other literary activities. This October, Read Me! will present The Happy Class by Theo Thijssen, the book that occupies center stage in the Holland Reads campaign. For this occasion, Cristina Garcia Martin is making a special animated film in response to the book. For the coming school year, new titles will be added to the book list.

Passion for the Hermitage
This summer, the sixth episode of Passion for the Hermitage went into production. The very last residents have left Amstelhof Nursing Home. This building will become home to Hermitage Amsterdam, the satellite museum of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. In this last episode of the series, Aliona van der Horst follows the preparations for the first exhibit, which is on balls and parties in the Russian court. Together with the Russian curators and their Dutch colleagues, we visit the depots, watch them plan the presentation of the artwork, and meet other devoted employees. The opening of the exhibition will be in the spring of 2009. Around this time, the entire Passion for the Hermitage series will be rebroadcast on AVRO Television.